Not sure if anyone saw the video, on wikileaks, but it was pretty disturbing. Not just the killing, but the actual callous disregard for human life and dignity, then they wonder why most of the world despises them. These guys act almost like it's a video game. I guess that is what happens when you put a bunch of cowboys in multi-million dollar killing machines.

Anyway after years of stalling by the Pentagon, (the incident occured in 2007) before someone leaked it, the defense chief still defends the troops rather than admitting, "hey, maybe we need to train our guys better so they stop killing allies and innocent civilians."

What about all the innocent Iraqis and Afghanis the U.S. army has killed in the heat of war? Why don't we hear about them? Are they any less significant than British, American or Canadian innocents?

This is a tragedy and you can't discount what's happened here, not at all. But these journalists also assume a certain amount of risk when going in to the middle of a warzone to take pictures and cover a story. Maybe Reuters is to blame for not cautioning the American army about where their journalists are stationed? Who knows. Would the Americans have killed those journalists had they known they were innocent? I would bet against it.

My point being it's easy to look at the Americans and say they're mindless cannibals with an appetite for war. It's not that cut and dry though.

dfunkie1

04-11-2010 01:48 PM

go 36 seconds in. thats why those dumbfucks would do that. it's a very unfortunate event, but do realize that these media types who step into a warzone are putting themselves and allied forces in danger.

it comes down to one thing. that camera could have been an RPG, and it definitely looks like it from the video, do they sit an wait to have it confirmed with being fired upon and put themselves in risks way, or eliminate the risk before they receive the actual confirmation that its not.

thought

04-11-2010 01:50 PM

Easy to judge when you're not the one in the middle of a life or death situation.

cloak

04-11-2010 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thought
(Post 363659)

Easy to judge when you're not the one in the middle of a life or death situation.

there's an element of truth to this, but even so, the entire situation doesn't seem to add up to "insurgency" just by looking at it. why would there be one guy with an rpg among a dozen others with no weapons walking around in the middle of the street? and if that weren't enough, why take out anyone but him? and why engage a second time when it's still clear nobody else has a "weapon"?

ClingRap

04-12-2010 11:50 AM

doesn't change the "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality. since when do peoples lives, and I'm talking about everyone involved in this, become relegated to such "logic"?
Not to mention, the complete ideological exercise of covering this information up. The comments thus far are reflective of engaging with the content itself, instead of the deeper political issues surrounding the media involved, and the way in which this footage is framed. Which I find more revealing of the war machine than the content of the footage itself.

Superjudge

04-12-2010 11:53 AM

Whatever, I don't like wars, but the reality is, they are in one. Jackson is right, what the hell are you supposed to do, wait until you see the missile thats about to blow you to pieces coming right at your before you make that call??

I'll give a lot of the younger people here the benefit of the doubt, you're young, but as you get older, whether you believe in war or not, you learn that once placed into a situation where its live or die, some choices become obvious.

LX

04-12-2010 12:23 PM

There were so many journalists killed in this thing, and the reasons go from the US attacking the hotel the journalists were staying at, to doing everything possible to make their work harder and riskier. I get that shit happens in wars, but dismissing the truth was the first casualty, and it ended up being a war against the truth in so many ways. And it's just a sad excuse to say it's a live or die situation when the whole thing was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks, cost nothing, and prove to be a necessity.

And yeah - the real tragedies are when the innocent families get blown up in the mix in big numbers.

Superjudge

04-12-2010 02:27 PM

agreed.

I guess im just talking about the time of the event.

The over all scenario is way flawed.

INSIDER

04-12-2010 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cloak
(Post 363713)

there's an element of truth to this, but even so, the entire situation doesn't seem to add up to "insurgency" just by looking at it. why would there be one guy with an rpg among a dozen others with no weapons walking around in the middle of the street?

why wouldnt there be?
why would a woman walk up to a road check point with a bomb under her clothes and blow herself up - and kill a dozen army personnel. nothing makes sense.. its life or death.
if there is any inkling that one of those guys has a weapon, you take him out... you take his 'posse' out. i guarantee you if you ask the soldiers if they would act the same and do the same thing again, each one of them would say yes.
its easy to judge a soldier's actions while we're sitting in our comfy chair at home with a cup of coffee in our hands... but when you are in the war and have a second to make a life or death decision, you go with your gut and take out any possible threat.
a man with an 'rpg' is a threat, regardless if he's walking in the street with others who arent carrying weapons.

Babyface Killah

04-12-2010 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thought
(Post 363656)

What about all the innocent Iraqis and Afghanis the U.S. army has killed in the heat of war? Why don't we hear about them? Are they any less significant than British, American or Canadian innocents?

This is a tragedy and you can't discount what's happened here, not at all. But these journalists also assume a certain amount of risk when going in to the middle of a warzone to take pictures and cover a story. Maybe Reuters is to blame for not cautioning the American army about where their journalists are stationed? Who knows. Would the Americans have killed those journalists had they known they were innocent? I would bet against it.

My point being it's easy to look at the Americans and say they're mindless cannibals with an appetite for war. It's not that cut and dry though.

Its true we never hear about the gruesome things happening to the Afghanis or Iraqis during the second Gulf war, just the propaganda of why they deserve to be invaded. Still I don't we should put all US troops under the same as these mental midgets.

cloak

04-14-2010 03:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by INSIDER
(Post 365054)

why wouldnt there be?
why would a woman walk up to a road check point with a bomb under her clothes and blow herself up - and kill a dozen army personnel. nothing makes sense.. its life or death.
if there is any inkling that one of those guys has a weapon, you take him out... you take his 'posse' out. i guarantee you if you ask the soldiers if they would act the same and do the same thing again, each one of them would say yes.
its easy to judge a soldier's actions while we're sitting in our comfy chair at home with a cup of coffee in our hands... but when you are in the war and have a second to make a life or death decision, you go with your gut and take out any possible threat.
a man with an 'rpg' is a threat, regardless if he's walking in the street with others who arent carrying weapons.

that still doesnt account for why they took out everyone else in the area, and why they further went on to engage a second time.

ClingRap

04-14-2010 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by •LX•
(Post 364659)

There were so many journalists killed in this thing, and the reasons go from the US attacking the hotel the journalists were staying at, to doing everything possible to make their work harder and riskier. I get that shit happens in wars, but dismissing the truth was the first casualty, and it ended up being a war against the truth in so many ways. And it's just a sad excuse to say it's a live or die situation when the whole thing was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks, cost nothing, and prove to be a necessity.

And yeah - the real tragedies are when the innocent families get blown up in the mix in big numbers.

To quote a line from "wag the dog", the truth doesn't fucking matter when you can make it whatever you want it to be. I don't think they dismiss truth. The error is thinking that there is only one. The US war machine wrestles with this idea, and puts forth a truth under the guise that it's the truth.

lonewolfpoet

04-14-2010 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thought
(Post 363656)

What about all the innocent Iraqis and Afghanis the U.S. army has killed in the heat of war? Why don't we hear about them? Are they any less significant than British, American or Canadian innocents?

This is a tragedy and you can't discount what's happened here, not at all. But these journalists also assume a certain amount of risk when going in to the middle of a warzone to take pictures and cover a story. Maybe Reuters is to blame for not cautioning the American army about where their journalists are stationed? Who knows. Would the Americans have killed those journalists had they known they were innocent? I would bet against it.

My point being it's easy to look at the Americans and say they're mindless cannibals with an appetite for war. It's not that cut and dry though.

Not quite sure what you are trying to get at in your first paragraph. These were Iraqi innocents.

As a former soldier I find the actions of the U.S. troops and their comments highly offensive.

If you are a soldier then you have to expect you might get put in the middle of a war zone, but the civilians are stuck. That happens to be where they live, they didn't ask for a war and be shot at by a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys when they were doing nothing more than walking down the street.

LX

04-14-2010 03:05 PM

Is cowboys the right description though? Or are they trained in simulations to be distanced from the reality of this? Are they actually closer to being extensions of drones? To me the frightening aspect is the ho-hum nature of it all. There's no holy fuck we have an rpg here, gotta take him out. No huge amount of uncontrolled adrenaline. And in fact everything was ok'ed here for an attack before a possible rpg was even noted.

It comes down to this for me, and this goes for everything I've seen reported on the ground or from cameras like this, or from a distance through a reporter's eyes. If you are in a place like Iraq and Afghanistan, you have a good chance of finding yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the US does not give a shit about the daily tragedies committed at their hands as long as they have their green zone. And the fuckwads that commit all kinds of atrocities to their own countrymen are all too happy to conspire in creating such a hellscape.